The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.

Friday, June 8, 2012

The 1877 Mitchell, Vance & Co. Bldg. Nos. 836-838 Broadway

photo by Beyond My Ken

Despite the drastic changes along Broadway below Union
Square following the Civil War, Judge James Roosevelt
refused to budge. Commercial buildings
replaced the fine old homes around his as his wealthy neighbors moved northward
to Murray Hill and Fifth Avenue, yet the judge stayed on in the house he had
built in the 1840s.

Roosevelt was a member of one of the oldest and most
prestigious families in New York. He
had further distinguished the name as a Justice of the Supreme Court in 1851,
United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and a member of
Congress. But finally, in 1875, James
Roosevelt died in his house at No. 836 Broadway; one of the last surviving
residences in the neighborhood.

Within a year the venerable house and its neighbor at No.
838 had been razed and a new commercial building was going up. Mitchell, Vance & Co., manufacturers and
designers of light fixtures, clocks and bronzes, and ornamental metal work, had commissioned
esteemed architect Stephen Decatur Hatch to design the new building.

The firm was established in 1854 and by now
was a leader in the industry. The wide array of items offered by Mitchell, Vance & Co.
required extensive showroom and office space. Over 600 workmen and artisans worked in the
factory and foundry on 10th Avenue between 24th and 25th
Street.

To satisfy the needs,
Hatch produced a wide, spacious cast iron structure six floors high that
terminated in a stylish, steep mansard roof.
Begun in 1876 and completed a year later, the L-shaped building had a
side entrance on West 13th Street.

Despite Mitchell, Vance's own high-end clientele and the exclusive nearby emporiums that also catered to New York’s
carriage trade, the architect
did not over-embellish. In fact his
understated iron façade has a nearly-industrial feel. Regimented rows of windows and
mostly-unadorned pilasters gave little hint of the elaborate and costly items
for sale inside. Only the fish-scale
covered mansard with its attractive dormers gave an aristocratic touch to the
design. And yet the façade, taken as a
whole, presents a dignified and upscale presence.

The Mitchell, Vance & Co. Building was the first modern building on the block.

“New York’s Great Industries” remarked that “Their
showrooms, salesrooms and offices occupy the entire six-story double building,
Nos. 836 and 838 Broadway…The amount of floor space in the establishment is
thus enormous, and yet it is none too large for the immense stock here gathered
together, and which forms the best exposition of their lines of goods ever
presented to a discerning public. The
showrooms make a most magnificent display, and which is a great attraction both
to citizens and visitors to the city.

No other house in the world has its equal, while in the
qualities of modern adaptability and true art, the firm possesses facilities as
regards designing and manufacture admittedly nowhere else to be found. Artists, native and foreign, are constantly employed
in designing and modeling subjects to be produced in both real and imitation
bronze.”

Within a decade electricity would begin making inroads in
the lighting field. Mitchell, Vance
& Co. was the pioneer in the electrical lighting area. When
Thomas Edison was still engaged in his Menlo Park experiments, he turned to
Mitchell, Vance & Co. for his first permanent lighting fixtures. By 1884 electrical lighting fixtures were a
major part of the firm’s offerings.

The electric lamps and chandeliers were based on the
existing gas fixtures and were outfitted for both—it would be decades before
the reliability of electrical service would warrant electric-only
fixtures. “It is the leading house to
enter the field of electric lighting, and plan and bring out multifarious and
beautiful designs for electric light fixtures of every description,” said “New
York’s Great Industries.”

The new technology was a tremendous boon to the company. By now it had illuminated the first private
residence lit by electricity, the J. Hood Wright house; as well as the mansions
of J. W. Doane of Chicago and Marshall Field; the Murray Hill Hotel and the
Hoffman House; the Minneapolis Opera House and the “Dakota Flats” facing
Central Park, among many others.

The company outfitted the steamer Pilgrim with 912 electric
lamps “including two beautiful electroliers ornamental in the highest degree,
and shedding a radiance through the main saloons, as grateful as it is
effective at night.”

On August 21, 1887 The New York Times said of Mitchell,
Vance & Co., “It heads the list of concerns manufacturing and dealing in
gas fixtures and similar goods, and so great has been its volume of trade that,
last night, it was said to have supplied three-fourths of the fine grade goods
in its line used in the United States.”

The firm's cast fixtures were well-designed and executed.

The expansion of the firm’s business was such that in 1889
The Electrical World reported that it “[has] devoted the basement of their
large salesrooms entirely to electric fixtures.” Interior designers, architects and homeowners
visited the Broadway building. “On the
main floor an elegantly carpeted and decorated room is assigned to handsome
electroliers, fixtures and brackets, and furnished with the electric current
for exhibiting them to buyers in all their glory of illumination,” said the
magazine. “This reception room alone is
worth a visit to the store to inspect.”

Financial problems forced the company to reorganize and
cinch in its belts. In 1890 Samuel B.
H. Vance—who had also been Mayor of New York—died. That same year the company was leasing space
to apparel companies as the dry goods and millinery district engulfed what had
formerly been solely high-end retail buildings.

Malcomson & Co., makers of boys’ clothing moved in after
its offices were destroyed in a fire at No. 549 Broadway. In 1898 Hutchinson, Pierce & Co., “shirt
and waist manufacturers,” was leasing space, including part of the retail area. The American Hatter said its “‘Star’ brand is
one of the best known in the market, and having been famous since 1840,
Hutchinson, Pierce & Company are proud of their record, as they certainly
out to be.”

In 1899 Mail & Express published a sketch of Broadway from 12th to 14th Streets. Only one Federal-style house, now converted, still survives at the corner of 13th Street. No. 836-838 sits two buildings to the right of it, labeled by Mail & Express as "Hutchinson, Pierce & Co." -- NYPL Collection

The periodical also noted that Louis Auerbach “has
redecorated his establishment, and has made it one of the handsomest in the
trade. Mr. Auerbach is showing an
extensive line of high-class novelties in neckwear, which should be seen by the
trade.”

In 1906 Mitchell, Vance now shared its building with six other firms. On February 11 catastrophe would strike Nos.
836-838 Broadway. Early in the morning a
fire broke out on the 2nd story of the 13th Street side
where the Philip Anderson company made hats.
It quickly spread up the elevator shaft, engulfing the building. An automatic fire alarm brought fire engines and before long 17 fire companies were battling the
conflagration. The Times reported that “The
building—an old-fashioned one belonging to the Roosevelt estate—offered little
resistance to the flames. The ceilings
crumpled like paper before the scorching blasts, and the partitions furnished
fine kindling material.”

Captain Walsh of Engine Company No. 14 and two of his men,
firefighters Healy and Kelley, were on the third floor when the floor above
collapsed, burying them. As firemen
poured water on the heap others dug frantically to rescue the trapped men. The newspaper reported that “The buried men
were almost drowned” but they were saved.
“Walsh’s eyebrows were gone and his heavy mustache was singed short when
he was pulled out. The hair of all three
of the men was burned close to the scalp and all were bruised, scorched, and
cut from head to foot.”

Another firefighter, Ladderman George Knecht plunged two
stories to the pavement when he was hit by a falling part of the building. In the freezing temperatures, the water from
the fire hoses froze as it hit the building and it took five hours to
extinguish the fire.

In the end there was over half a million dollars in
damages. “The building was wrecked and
the stocks of seven firms destroyed,” said The New York Times. Philips, Anderson & Co., where the fire
started, was a complete loss. J.
Goldstone & Company, makers of cloaks and suits lost its entire stock as
well. The same was true of Heller &
Company. The Pioneer Suspender Company,
the Savoy Shirt Company and the Heath Krises Company who made felt hats were
all heavily damaged.

But it was Mitchell Vance Company that was hit the
hardest. An insurance agent on the site
estimated the loss at around $200,000—just under $4 million today. The company was insured for only $125,000.

Despite the devastation, the structure was rebuilt. Stephen Decatur’s “fireproof” façade was just
that. It survived intact. Within months even Mitchell Vance Company
was back in operation from its old headquarters.

The new tenants continued to come from the garment and millinery
industries. Crown Suspender was here in
1908 and Phillips, Anderson & Co. was back in the building, doing a brisk
business in the straw hat trade. The
company would remain here until 1911 when a fire destroyed its factory.

Finally in 1915 the Mitchell, Vance Company left after
nearly four decades in the building and 61 years of business. The Roosevelt estate leased about 20,000
square feet of the building that year to Weiner Brothers, Inc., a major dealer
in “cotton, sleeve, mohair, satin, pocketing, silk and converters of cotton
goods.”

Early in December 1921 the Roosevelt family sold the
building at Nos. 836-838 Broadway to “a cotton merchant” after having owned the
property for over three-quarters of a century.
The building continued house garment firms including the Zeeman &
Grossman Bros. Company, manufacturers of young men’s clothing, and the Velvet
Sample Card Company.

By the 1930s the garment district had moved upward to
Broadway and 7th Avenue and Nos. 836-838 Broadway saw a
variety of tenants. Among these in 1950
was the J. Beeber Company, makers of surgical and medical equipment. That year the firm donated ten short-wave
diathermy machines and other medical equipment to the new state of Israel and
to the National Side Fund of Palestine.

Today the building is little changed. No modern shop fronts have obliterated the
street-level iron work; although the original expansive showroom windows have
been reduced in height by half and the attractive entrance doors are gone. Home
to, among other concerns, the NYU Press, Stephen Decatur Hatch’s subdued Victorian
design has withstood the onslaught of time, fire and change.

4 comments:

You may know this photograph which shows the Lincoln Funeral marching up Broadway toward Union Square. Two little boys are seen in one of the windows of their grandfather's house. They are Theodore and Elliot Roosevelt. I'm not sure if this is the same house you described but it's in the same area. http://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Blog/2012/June/05-Getting-to-Know-Roosevelt-Outside-the-Presidency.aspx

Any one know what ever happened to the New York Elks Lodge #1 lights and chandeliers that were in there big building on 43rd street. The Mitchell Vance CO. I am told to have fitted that lodge many accoutrements. Is this true and where did it all go to after they were kicked out of there own building??? Any answers I'm a jmcdrums@aol.com Thank you!